Ducklings Class

Miss Burnham - Class Teacher

Miss Sandhu - Teaching Assistant

Miss Eleston - Teaching Assistant

Week 5

This week we have had a fantastic trip to the theatre to watch 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea'. The show was absolutely amazing, and we all thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the singing and dancing, as well as retelling the story. Back in school we created our own tigers, learned all about the continent of Asia and had our own tea party with bunting and chocolate crispie cakes - yum!

Week 2

The children have had a fabulous week this week, the highlight of which has to be our Science Day! The children were full of awe and wonder as we performed science shows throughout the day to inspire them and spark their interest. We investigated the following:

- What happens when you add warm water to skittles?
- When you rub a balloon on some cloth, will it 'stick' to someone? Will it make their hair stand on end?
- When you put sellotape on a balloon, can you put something sharp through it without it popping?

We made a rainbow in a jar using different density liquids, the children were fascinated by how the liquids floated on top of one another, leaving stripes of beautiful colour. The children watched with fascination, as coloured water 'walked' from bowl to bowl using kitchen roll. They explored torches with different coloured caps, to see if they could make different coloured shadows. They mixed the lights, exploring colour mixing, as well as asking if they shone the lights through a white balloon, would it change colour? It was a wonderful day, and the children loved exploring everything on offer in the classroom!

Week 1

This week the children have really enjoyed listening to the story of 'The Snail and the Whale' by Julia Donaldson. In their choosing time, they have been very busy drawing snails and the snail's trail using chalk, as well as building little snail characters out of playdough!

Term 6 Our Big, Wide World

This term we will be using maps to explore the local area of Spalding, and then comparing this to other places from around the world such as India and Africa. We will also think about the United Kingdom, visiting places like London through our stories and seeing how city life can be different and similar in many ways. We will explore the different places using our senses, including trying foods from around the world, and will learn how to make our own maps.

Weeks 5 and 6

The children have had a wonderful term exploring life cycles of animals and the growth of plants. We had a wonderful time in forest adventures this week carefully hunting for minibeasts, remembering how to lift logs carefully, and always leaving creatures where we found them. We ticked off what we discovered and the children were so excited to find spiders, slugs, centipedes, millipedes, woodlice and many types of beetle.

Term 5 Big, Bigger, Biggest!

Our topic this term is called Big, Bigger, Biggest! We will be finding out about growth and change over time both in plants and animals. We will look after caterpillars and see first-hand, the wonderful process they go through to become beautiful butterflies. We will plant seeds and watch how things grow. We will learn about bees and how marvellous they are and the important role they play in pollination of flowers. This term promises to be buzzzzzy!

Week 3 - Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Week three has been centred around the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The children have had so much fun re-telling the story. We are all very confident at joining in with the story and talking about what we all think of how Goldilocks behaved. Goldilocks snuck into our classroom at lunchtime and made a terrible mess! She had tipped over chairs and left porridge oats everywhere! The children were very sad, and all helped to clean up the mess. Luckily, after we had used mark making to write letters to Goldilocks, and spoken to her on the phone in our role-play area, she wrote a letter back to us telling us how sorry she was!
There has been a lot of porridge exploration this week - we have had a go at making porridge and eating it too. We have also mixed porridge and made it in the mud kitchen outside - there were some very unusual suggestions for flavours!
 

Week 2 - The Colour Monster

We have loved reading and learning all about the Colour Monster story this week. We have learned how to express our feelings of love, happiness, sadness, fear and anger and it is amazing to hear the children sharing these feelings during their play. You may have seen lots of Colour Monster pictures coming home to you this week as the children were so excited to create their own versions using feathers, paint and bingo dabbers.
As we have gone through the week, we have built wonderful friendships and are gaining confidence to talk to the adults around us. In Literacy this week we read a story called 'Have you filled a bucket today?' by Carol McCloud, which helped us to understand how we can use our behaviour to help others to be happy. It also taught us how we may have an empty bucket if others are unkind. There were lots of conversations amongst the children about the different things that made them happy and sad.
In maths we have focussed on how we can recognise numbers of objects in different positions and representations. We are continuing to really enjoy singing nursery rhymes that are all based around number.

Week 1 - Getting to Know You

Ducklings have had the most fantastic start to school! We have all settled really well and have been practising our routines and the rules of school, as well as building new friendships.

In Maths this week, we have begun to count using some fun counting songs (you will probably hear your children singing them at home!).
In phonics we have been practising listening to sounds from our environment, such as rustling paper, or a crunchy packet, so that we can practise our listening skills. We have also listened to and sung nursery rhymes including Five Little Ducks, Humpty Dumpty, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Baa Baa Black Sheep.
We look forward to our first full week together next week.

Term 1 - Once Upon a Time

This term we will be reading and learning many fairytales and traditional tales, including Little Red Riding Hood, The Little Red Hen, Jack and the Beanstalk and the Three Little Pigs. We will get to know all about our own and other people's emotions by reading The Colour Monster, and by acting out the characters from all of the books we share.

Our maths work will focus on numbers 1-5, and how to subitise these to be able to recognise these numbers in different representations.

There will be lots of exploration of our new classrooms, our shared area where we can curl up with story books or play in our home role-play area, as well as learning through play in the outdoor area. Our favourite place is the mud kitchen!